That does seem considerably more usefull than the current incarnation for skinks. Especially the ability to have people charge into difficult terrain alongside having far better cover is briljant. And as far as I can see the only thing remaining of them being skirmishers would be wary fighter then, which is the one thing actually making em worthwhile.. explains why that single ability is so disproportionatly powerfull when compared to the rest of their abilities As for their current incarnation, how would we get them to a similar level without making them horrificly OP? I'd say start by giving them back their poison on all skink wielded weapons, including the heroes and mounted ones. I don't think it'd be particularly OP on anything, but it'd at least push skinks far enough to actually be capable of forcing a save without needing at least 20 attacks... Then give all unmounted skinks that -1 to being hit with ranged attacks, which makes em far more durable and fits their general skirmish tactics. It'd give them more of an identy as skirmishers without being oppressive and would feel more like their old incarnation. Not sure what else could be added though and I do feel like this wouldn't be entirely enough to make a "proper" skink based army, but it should at least change skinks from mostly harmless to something actually worth chasing down. Which dwarfs? these are fine as far as I can tell. Far more capable than our skinks at least in terms of stats. And these have such amazing ranged firepower that a poor melee would be excused (and they're still better than skinks in melee..). Also, it's not that skinks have crap melee stats, it's that they have fairly terrible stats in most any situation. The only interesting thing being wary fighters. Those no longer exist though. Plus skaven slaves are still skaven so as a race they're still fine with their stormfiends and stormvermin even if they also have the absolute worst available as well. Gnoblars I'm not sure if they count seperatly or not like how goblins differ from orruks, not sure how different they are.
Skinks where allays terrible in close combat though. as only their range attack where poisoned. (except for the cohorts, and they where a ranked unit)
Fair enough, and tbh even with poisoned melee weapons they'd be terrible close up. Would mostly just do it for consistency and for the few skinks that are melee like the starpriest (seriously why does that guy only havea melee attack...), or the skinks riding rippers. It wouldn't make much sense for them to not use the same poison given how they need every advantage they can get.
What do “Skaven Slaves” count as now? Gnoblars, same Question... I am assuming there are little charts somewhere that say, there are no scrolls for these models, instead use X....?
Skavenslaves still exist, they're arguably worse than skinks but have a way of dealing mortal wounds & their save is better against attacks of 1 if they have shields. Gnoblars are grots see the substitute warscroll table
Grots are actually weirdly effective fighters in AoS, even without their deranged weapons or mounts they're already equal and when you take into account that it's rarely just a grot, but nearly always on some mount or with some idiotic siege engine they quickly get better (see one of my comments a while back)